You were never crazy, NASCAR was paying teams and trying to crush the ALMS with Grand Am! (Updated!)

 Since was posted in a NASCAR land newspaper, I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere. Maybe others have seen it and the general reaction is "water under the bridge" since Grand Am bought the ALMS to create the new Tudor United Sports Car Championship that begins at Daytona next year.

 However when Murphy The Bear often spoke of this truth, he was called all sorts of names including the often used "conspiracy theorist". Usually its because the lack of any real investigation leads to opinions about things, rather than facts.

 Well, we finally have the facts and Grand Am fans will need to eat quite a bit of crow.

 http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/10/06/4367131/divorce-case-exposes-struggles.html#.UldHt1Csg1i

 Its funny how a divorce often uncovers things you wouldn't expect.

 Grand Am was and never well be fondly remembered as much as the ALMS will be and that's just the truth. This sort of information puts a final nail in the Grand Am's coffin. I will be watching the new braintrust very closely.

 Thanks to Peter Delorenzo for posting this on his blog!

 Update #1

 I had to do a bit of searching on Murphy's blog which he no longer post too as he lost interest in covering the downward spiral of the ALMS. I don't blame him... The bungling at under the current management is astounding. The complete and total mismanagement of the Porsche, Audi, Acura LMP story which blew up in Acura's face when they were the only players left in 2009 after committing to LMP1 right before the financial crisis blew up in Oct of 2008.

 Here's the post from 2009 that confirmed NASCAR's payment plan to teams which included Brumos and Spirit of Daytona. Having known this since before 2009 actually; that is why I can't take anything Jim Keane says seriously. As the co-host of The Racing Insiders and employee of Spirit of Daytona when he complains about cost to upgrade the slower than dirt DP's up to LMP2 pace, it rings very hollow. The majority of his employer's bills (and his paycheck) are paid by General Motors or Government Motors as some people like to call them.

 Its this sort of bs that if the general public knew would turn them off of sports car racing.

 I'm going to continue to dig deeper because its unfortunate that we had to lose the battle when we didn't have too. In the end, we as ALMS fans have won the war, but we're forced to accept the DP's and even Michael Shank is giddy about running at Le Mans, in what I have no idea because I doubt seriously DP's in any guise will be accepted by the ACO.

TUCSS Oversubscribed? North American Endurance Championship the Alternative? Update!

That seems to be the thinking in Daytona Beach.

 Given all the information I have found, it looks like the 60 car threshold will be met. Currently Daytona has 60 pit stalls on pit lane and 74 garage spaces. 

 According to various sources including Graham Goodwin of Dailysportscar, some European P2 teams may not be extended an invite to the series opening round. The reason given is the expected capacity of GT-D to be about 20 cars, if not more. 

 Right now I count about 54 cars committed to the new series full-time, which is why they went forward with the split races at Long Beach, Detroit and VIR.

 Pickett Racing has yet to confirm but will be staying in the series at least for 2014 and already confirmed Stevenson Motorsports departure.

 That leaves only six spots.

 The only fly in the ointment is the approximate 30% increase in budget needed to run the new 12 race series (11 races for Pro Am classes and 11 races for Pro Classes actually).

 Who will fill those extra spots?

 The likely order is; season entries get priority. Then those entries for the North American Endurance Championship (NEC) and finally the one-off's.

 I mentioned before since the WEC season doesn't start until April 18th at Silverstone, both Daytona and Sebring would be excellent tune ups for the coming season. I believe some teams will skip the ELMS all together to run in the much tougher US series.

 Driver Johnny Mowlem on Mid-Week Motorsport said his team, 2013 ELMS GT Champions Ram Racing is looking very hard at the Tudor United Sports Car Championship. They would love to do it, if they can find the budget. Its likely if they don't do the entire series, they may opt for the NEC and Le Mans, which would require shipping the car over twice but overall that is cheaper than a WEC season or full TUSCC campaign.

 Paul Dalla Lana who is unhappy with the way WEC is run generally left his Aston Martin Vantage GTLM car in America after the WEC COTA event (in which the ALMS outdrew WEC much to this dismay of ACO/WEC management), is likely to also run the entire Tudor Championship. 

 AF Corse has said it would like to do the NEC as well.

 Among the Prototypes, I know Murphy, TDS and Greaves are all interested. I believe Greaves will partner with Chris Dyson for a full season, while Dyson Racing sorts out what its long range plans are. Chris has said its unlikely they will buy a new chassis since their budget called for a three year program with their Lola. IE they hadn't planned on buying a new car and don't have the budget for it. At COTA it was mentioned by Rob Dyson that its likely they will develop their own engine for P2 (via AER which they own) but its unlikely to be ready by the start of next year.

 So if you count three prototypes, two extra Ferrari's in GTLM, its likely only one spot left and who that gets that is anybody's guess, but I'll say Dalla Lana and his Aston Martin Vantage.

 *Update #1 

 It seems intentionally (or not) John Dagys has mentioned in his post-race report for the final Petit Le Mans that Scott Tucker had raced for his final victory and championship in the ALMS which we knew was ending but does that mean the 2-time P2 champ, 2-time LMPC champ is considering the world stage (FIA WEC)?

 I wouldn't blame him if he did.... I don't remember where I read it, but it seems Mr. Tucker lobbied for the new merged Prototype class to remain Pro-Am to allow Gentlemen drivers like himself and equalize the competition with that requirement.

 That will not happen in the new series because despite P2 being a Pro Am class in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS or LMS) and World Endurance championship (WEC) it will be fully professional in the US. There will be no more Trueman Award (Grand Am) for best Gentlemen racer (that I know of).

 So for people like him and Tracy Krohn for example, you have a few choices.

•  Prototype Challenge (since he's a previous champion I doubt this, even if he ordered a new cars already)
•  Prototype 2 in WEC/ELMS - More than likely WEC since ELMS is a much weaker series than the ALMS or what the Tudor Championship will be.

 I would mention GT series like Blancpain but I think its obvious he's not interested in running GT cars at this point in his career.

 So my money is on Tucker wanting to continue to drive will go to the WEC next season. The competition depth will be greater than it was this season, so it will be good for his team to move on.

 While I always thought Tucker for next year was a bit of a question mark, I didn't think ordering LMPC cars meant much. It could be just a business opportunity to rent out chassis to drivers since for logistical reasons, he won't using his US based transporters or shops if he races in WEC. It is likely he'll have a satellite base camp in Europe somewhere since the majority of races are in Europe (Silverstone, Spa and Le Mans including Test Day) as are most if not all the teams.

 It could very well be an arrive and drive scenario, stay tuned to see if I'm right.

 *Update #2 

 I've created an editable table to keep track of next year's entries. If you know of any information before I find out (I check around the net daily), feel free to edit the table.

 Here's the link 

What impact will FIA GT3 cars have on World Challenge?

 When Pirelli World Challenge announced they would allow full spec FIA GT cars, I knew it would only be a matter of time before things got serious.

 As it stands now, expect for a few drivers, PWC has a very Pro-Am/Club feel to it. 

 Team Cadillac for intents and purposes should be dominating; they have previously when other teams without even close to the resources of Pratt & Miller were forced to build their own cars.

 I place before the court the Hawk Performance Nissan GTR and its generally poor performance/reliability.

 But when Global Motorsport Group, a long-time Porsche supporter moved over to Audi R8's (older FIA spec cars) it proved to be a excellent decision. This season has been very consistent for GMG; winning a few races and I think completing every lap this season. 

 James Sofronas is leading the points going into the final weekend.

 If you saw the entry list going into this weekend it looks very normal, ho-hum actually.

 But when checking for times this morning, guess who was leading the timesheets in yesterday's cancelled practice/qualifying session? 

 Audi R8 LMS factory driver and former Porsche Super Cup Champion, Rene Rast.

 For those that don't know; Rast has been winning races in ADAC GT (German GT3), Blancpain Endurance Series and FIA GT Series, driving the majority of the time for Belgian Audi Club-WRT.

 I've said before with the acceptance of full FIA GT3 cars into World Challenge; Teams that have multi-car efforts like GMG will feature at least one factory driver, who will go for the driver's and manufacturer's championships.

 This ups the ante considerably since the best drivers in the series currently are journeyman driver Randy Pobst, who is popular with the club racer/autocrosser community since that's where he comes from. Former CART/CCWS driver Alex Figge also joins Pobst in the factory supported Volvo S60R.

 While the Caddy team has become the retirement home for ALMS drivers who have lost a step. GM lifer Andy Pilgrim who left (read: forced out) the Corvette program almost a decade ago is joined by current series champion Johnny O'Connell, who was forced out of the Corvette program at the start of the 2011 season.

 Once you understand that, you can see how a Pro-Am driver like James Sofronas who is actually a very good driver for somebody that doesn't do it for a living; can lead the championship with a good reliable car like the Audi. As I said previously GMG was a Porsche team being based not very far from Porsche Motorsport North America which is located about an hour from my house in Huntington Beach.

 They were basically up against cars built by P&M that are somewhere near the overall pace to a FIA GT3 car. The Porsches they were driving were Cup cars with larger 4.0L engines. As I mentioned recently on Racer.com and Sportcars 365; these cars do not have the downforce the factory Caddy or Volvo has and that impacts lap time. Now with that said, a very quick professional driver, who can get the most out of a Porsche, say Pat Long can win with those cars. But expecting Amatur drivers like Ende and Sofranas to compete with them is totally unreasonable.

 That's why I said WC has a club racer feel to it. At various times over its history World Challenge has had factory involvement, so this is nothing new. This will surely to bring up the level of professionalism the series needs to move up in popularity.

 I fully expect GMG to field at least two Audi's next season if not as many as four, but one car will have a factory Audi driver. Because I am fairly confident that TRG-Aston Martin will put Damien Faulkner in a Vantage GT3 for both World Challenge and GT-Daytona.

 I fully expect a real "Sports Car War" to break out in World Challenge...

 Here's a bit of news not everybody heard: Multi-time DTM Champion Bernd Schneider will be running the in the 25 Hours of Thunderhill in Dec. I heard this during the last Blancpain race which his team won to secure the driver's championship for Max Buk. Being a factory Mercedes driver, who do you think is on the entry list for Thunderhill?

 That would be one Tim Pappas, who owns Black Swan Racing, driving a Mercedes SLS AMG GT3.

 I don't think it takes much of a leap to put two and two together.

Fun Small Cars and The Morons Who Own Them

 While watching some NFL games this afternoon, I am always online. So while I was online and if you read my previous post you know I am looking at the '14 Ford Fiesta ST and '14 Chevy Sonic LT (the lowest cost style with the optional 1/.4L Turbo engine) to purchase as a fun daily driver.

 I am always curious on what others are doing with these cars. 

 I read a story back around 2004-2005 that more OEM's would be using small displacement turbocharged engines to replace engines larger than 2.0L for small cars (Class B think Fiesta, Class C think Focus). As of 2013/2014 model year, there are more factory turbocharged cars available than when I bought my Dodge Neon SRT-4 in late 2006.

 So as I said I am curious what others are doing, specifically with drag racing these cars. I am a fan of drag racing as a grassroots motorsport. Its affordable and as long as your car is slower than 11.50 and under 130 mph trap speed, only a helmet is required for safety equipment.

 Unlike road racing which requires a whole host of safety equipment and you'll be at a disadvantage against those that have trailered their cars. Meaning your car will have all its interior parts, likely air conditioning and other things not needed. You'll be at a weight disadvantage which is important in all forms of motorsport but maybe tractor pulls.

 Which is why I am not all that shocked at the lack of good drag strip numbers for the majority of these cars.

 I've found a Focus ST that ran 13.8 on street tires, that required an engine controller upgrade (Flash). Not bad, it could have run better though. Starting with the Dodge Caliber SRT-4, OEM's have been putting larger brake rotors on the cars. This makes sense as the cars have higher curb weights and more power. This has been challenging to get serious traction that racing slicks provide because nobody offered a slick for a wheel bigger than 15" that would fit on most small cars.

 (Actually I found some quicker cars on focusst.org)

 M&H Tires to the rescue!

 http://www.mandhtires.com/M-H-Racemaster-Drag-Slicks?product_id=150#.Uki3OIasgk0

 M&H Tires has always supported the grassroots/weekend warrior. I guess demand was there and they filled it, fantastic!

 Of course there will still be excuses by people that own cars that can use the traction but as the saying goes, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make them drink it.

 As I said drag racing is an affordable way to get started in motorsports. I would much rather autocross than goto a HPDE (High Performance Driving Event) where you can't pass people aggressively. The reason is they don't want people with expensive cars getting involved in accidents which would dissuade people from coming.

 Why not autocross and drag race? You wouldn't autocross on the stock tires (nobody competitively does), so why would you drag race on your stock wheels and tires????

 But people continue to show up at the drag strip on street tires. Now some think this is harder on the drivetrain. While the wheel hop that primarily happens on street tires, even drag radials can break things (axles, motor mounts, etc), slicks eliminate that almost completely since the soft side walls of the tire absorb much of the shock to the drivetrain. Drag radials are much better than street tires because the even if they are radial tires, the side walls do flex, which helps with overall traction.

 Its much safer to the drivetrain to drag race on slicks (a) or drag radials (b). To not cause wheel hop with regular street rubber, you cannot be overtly aggressive with the launch, since the race track is more tacky than often very slick public roads.

 Street tires are not the fastest way down a drag strip. People do it anyway, because I think there's a false belief especially those with little to no experience that if they are quick on street tires, they'll be fast street racing (I don't encourage that....).

 In my next post about this subject, I will talk more about grassroots motorsports that you can do with your street car.